"The Strange Voyage": A Short Précis on Strategy

Abstract

T ry as we might, war and armed conflict remain at the center of international relations and state policy. Success in war requires many things, but surely effective strategy must top the list. Why is making good strategy so hard? It is perhaps the most difficult task facing senior leaders in any government. Despite a wealth of sources and millennia of useful historical examples, sound strategic thinking more often than not eludes western democracies. Why? History has a way of making strategy look simple and even inevitable. In the common narrative, for example, Pearl Harbor forced America into World War II, the United States adopted a "Europe first" approach, went to full mobilization, led victorious coalitions to smash the opposition, and then won the peace. The reality was very different, the outcome at the time far from certain, and the costs required far higher than expected. Strategic reality is more accurately captured by Churchill's term "the strange voyage." 1 Often begun with confidence and optimism, strategic ventures frequently end in frustration and indecisive outcomes. Good strategy begins with basic questions. What are we trying to do? How much will it cost? How should we use what we have got to achieve the aim? The questions are simple. But answering them-thoughtfully, comprehensively, honestly, and dispassionately-is by far the exception to the rule. Failing to frame the problem correctly at the outset may be the most common, and disastrous, strategic error of all. The first minefield is one of definition. Students, theorists, and practitioners of strategy face a bewildering range of competing and confusing terms. Thus we find national security strategy, national defense strategy, national military strategy, grand strategy, coalition strategy, regional strategy, theater strategy, and campaign strategy-to name a few. Where does one end and the other begin? Do they overlap? Or are some just synonyms? The word "strategy" derives from the the Greek stratēgia "generalship," and stratēgos "my leader." Classically, strategy was quite literally "the Art of the General." Webster defines strategy as "the science and art of employing the political, economic, psychological, and 1 "Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events." Sir Winston Churchill,